I was delighted to visit the Tendercare Living long-term-care home in my riding to inform them of the historic investments our government is making into long-term care and what this funding means for the residents of the home. These investments into care will ensure that residents can connect to the right care immediately, instead of having to go to hospitals or outside health care providers. This funding will also help reduce and avoid unnecessary emergency department visits and hospital stays.

This is part of a broader investment, including a new $46 million in budget 2024 in the long-term-care sector to help seniors with complex needs like dementia and bariatric care to get the care they need at their convenience, quickly and close to home.

Our government is keeping its promise to our seniors and families to fix the long-term-care sector, which was ignored and neglected by the previous Liberal government.

In addition, our government invested $4.9 billion over four years to hire and retain 27,000 long-term-care staff to provide the care residents need.

Furthermore, we are investing a historic $6.4 billion to build 58,000 new and upgraded beds.

Our government also hired 193 new long-term-care inspection staff, including 156 new inspectors.

We owe it to our seniors to provide them a dignified, healthy and active life during their retirement days.

Thanks to the great member from just north of Kingston. He’s an outstanding new member in our caucus. He’s standing up for residents in his riding who have great concerns about the carbon tax, whether they’re farmers, or that mom and dad who is heading to take their kids to hockey—as I mentioned earlier—or to school, or the construction workers who are working so hard.

The member talked about those small business people who haven’t received their carbon tax rebate. We can solve this by not having the carbon tax in the first place, which is what we’ve been pushing for since 2018 here, with Premier Ford and our team in Ontario. I had a meeting with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business just last week, where they told me about the fact that this $1.3 billion had been stuck there in Ottawa and business owners hadn’t received it. Obviously, again, the solution to the problem—scrap the carbon tax. Eliminate it entirely, so you don’t have to worry about it.

Bonnie Crombie, the queen of the carbon tax, and the Ontario Liberal caucus believe that the people of Ontario are better off with this carbon tax than without it.

I know the people just north of Kingston, up in Smiths Falls, Perth and all of those great communities in eastern Ontario, don’t support the carbon tax.

Let’s be clear again: The queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, loves hiking taxes. That’s all she did when she was the mayor of Mississauga for all those years, and now she has brought those same practices to her partisan role as the Liberal leader here in Ontario. She’s happy to have the federal carbon tax in place. And she would be way too expensive for the people of Ontario if she was ever elected into this wonderful chamber that we have here in Ontario.

Again, we’re standing up for the people of Ontario by cutting gasoline taxes, while Liberals are driving gasoline taxes up higher and higher every year—on April 1. We’re cutting those gasoline taxes. We’re ensuring that we have affordable energy right across the province, like that big investment in hydroelectric power—

Interjections.